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Australia Post #11: Yunguburra to Cairns to Brizzy

Dec 4th, 2008
by WanderingJustin.
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Thursday, Aug. 30
The early bird gets to see a tree kangaroo, don’t you know? I was lazy this morning. But Sarah wasn’t, and she got rewarded: She went for a run and spotted a mama tree kangaroo cradling its baby.
Anyway, we grabbed a quick breakfast at the hostel (NOTE: The brown gooey stuff is Vegemite, not Nutella. Don’t believe otherwise for a second!) and drove off to see the curtain fig tree, which is just a slight detour from our route back to Cairns. It’s cool. Look at the pictures, and you can be the judge if it’s worth the trip.
From there, we dropped into a small park to hike down to one of the many crater lakes in the area. It’s not really a big lake, but it’s still really cool and worth seeing. But here’s the really exciting part: As we finished the hike (which was really too easy to really be a proper hike) and returned to the car, we saw the one critter that had been eluding us: a cassowary!
Now, these are big, mean, nasty birds. They’ll often chase joggers and rip up the roofs of convertible cars. They have nasty claws that can rip you up, and they’ll also peck the shit out of you.

But me? I had a Steve Irwin moment, and “crikey’d!” my way up to it and fired off a bunch of photos before we dove into the car and sped off. Cool!
So far, this was shaping up to be another one [...]

Australia 2007 Post 9 – Cairns to Kuranda to Port Douglas

Nov 26th, 2008
by WanderingJustin.
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Monday, Aug. 27
On the Captain Cook highway,  I’m in the right seat and I feel like a 15-year-old learning to drive again – all that’s missing is my mother swatting me in the arm with a rolled-up newspaper while screeching “We’re only TWO MILES from the next stop sign! Slow down!”
Here’s what’s odd about driving in Australia, no matter what side of the road you’re on: Superhighways are rare, and people drive slower. The Captain Cook highway is four lanes at its widest.
We headed north and turn off toward Kuranda, a small town that’s tucked away in the mountains just west. The road is very narrow and twisty, and several times we get caught behind some old scrap heap laboring and wheezing its way up the road (which really is only about 3,000 feet in elevation change). But the Ozzy drivers are pretty nice people (so long as you’re not a pedestrian), and the pull to the left (wrap your mind around that…) to let faster cars pass.
Though it’s only about 22 miles, it took us a good 45 minutes with a slight construction delay. For us, the Venom Zoo was the highlight of Kuranda. Otherwise, it was all pretty much touristy shops. We took a nice walk to where the scenic railway from Cairns shows up into town. We logged a good five miles of walking through some of the tracks and through the countryside. The view toward the dam and Barron Gorge is pretty awesome.
But back to the [...]

Australia 2007 Post #8 – Darwin to Gove to Cairns

Nov 22nd, 2008
by WanderingJustin.
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A note from Wandering Justin: I had a little lapse in posting this week … lots of freelance work to finish! Also, the next entry or two won’t have many photos. I tend to take fewer photos in the cities.
Saturday, Aug. 25
The previous night, our foursome had decided to meet at the Parap Village Market. That’s about a mile-long walk from the center of Darwin. This market goes on every Saturday, and it’s a good way to dig into the Asian flavor of Darwin. There are booths with cooked food, pre-packaged stuff, fresh fruit, vegetables and ingredients you can make yourself. There’s a lot of the usual schlocky weekend market stuff, too…hemp clothing, jams, bad art and the like.
But I ate a bunch of stuff I’d never seen before, and it was all tasty. Couldn’t tell you the names now, that’s for sure. Except I do remember pawpaw salad. It’s pretty much raw, unripe shredded bits of papaya covered in a chili sauce and peanuts. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s an explosion of flavor.
We were pretty lazy, so we spent most of our time at the market, walking back to town and just hanging about. Orla left for Sydney, but that evening we met Karen again for dinner. She brought some Italian guy, Michael, with her. He was a bit different from us, being about a decade older. And he was clearly looking for some female attention (What? An Italian chasing tail? Never!)!
But still, he was a pretty fun [...]

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